Comfort Food; written by Zorana Sadiq and directed by Mitchell Cushman, opened in the Studio at Crow’s theatre on Friday evening. Itdescribes itself as an exploration of “the delicacy of familial love” told via the intersecting stories of Bette (Zorana Sadiq) and her teenage son Kit (Noah Grittani). Bette is a single mother and the host of a TV cooking show that has seen better days. Kit is a high school student who is trying to be a climate change activist (mostly virtually).
I don’t pay as much attention to the free concert series at Metropolitan United as I should but yesterday I made it there to hear tenor Alexander Cappellazzo and pianist Narmina Afandiyeva in a programme of 20th and 21st century song.
On Wednesday evening I went back to the Four Seasons Centre for another look at the COC’s production of Berg’s Wozzeck. I was really impressed with the show on opening night (my review on bachtrack.com) and was interested to see whether a second look would give some insights into a production that is visually fascinating almost to the point of overload.
Michael Kupfer-Radecky as Wozzeck and Anthony Robin Schneider as the Doctor
A Taste of Hong Kong is a one man show written by anonymous and performed by Derek Chan as Jackie Z. Richard Wolfe directs. It’s a sort of tragi-comedy about the Chinese takeover of Hong Kong from the British. There’s a lot of audience interaction, especially at the beginning, so at first I thought it was going to be like a version of Monks but with fishballs instead of lentils but it gets much darker pretty fast.
Last Tuesday lunchtime in the RBA we got a sneak preview of some of the music that will feature at this year’s 20th anniversary Toronto Summer Music.
There was soprano Caitlin Wood with Philip Chiu performing three French chansons; at least one of which will feature in Mary Bevan and Roger Vignoles’ Walter Hall recital. Cait herself will be performing as part of the cast of Brian Current’s opera Missing during the festival.
L’extase: Debussy and Messiaen is a new CD from mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená and pianist Mitsuko Uchida. There are four sets of songs; three by Debussy and one by Messiaen. The Debussy sets are Trois Chansons de Bilitis which set texts by Pierre Louÿs, Cinq poèmes de Charles Baudelaire and Ariettes oubliées to tests by Paul Verlaine.
To my ear all these cycles inhabit a similar sound world. It’s very beautiful and languorous for the most part with something just not quite wholesome about it. We are clearly looking forward to the language of Pelléas et Mélisande. Only occasionally does something a bit more dynamic happen as in the quite dramatic “La tombeau des Naiades” from the first set and the lively “Chevaux des bois” from the Verlaine settings. Continue reading
Tapestry Opera are currently presenting a production of Sanctuary Song (music by Abigail Richardson-Schulte, words by Marjorie Chan). It’s a piece that premiered in 2008 and this revival, directed by Michae Mori, represents Tapestry’s first major production in the new Nancy and Ed Jackman Performance Centre.
My review of Asitha Tennekoon and friends’ recital at the Women’s Musical Club of Toronto on Thursday is now posted at La Scena.
Unbridled Theatre Collective, a new outfit, opened a run of Brecht/Weill’s The Threepenny Opera at Video Cabaret on Thursday evening. It’s in an updated version created for The National Theatre by Simon Stephens in 2016 and it’s so updated it might well be retitled The 1.25p Opera. It’s raunchy and contains sexually explicit language and action (including some rather disturbing sexual violence) that would never have made it past the censors back in the day.
The last concert of Soundstreams 2024/25 season took place at Hugh’s Room on Wednesday evening. Marion Newman and Angela Park gave a recital called Ancestral Voices which premiered the piano version of the Bramwell Tovey song cycle of that name. I had heard the orchestral version with Marion singing and Bramwell conducting the VSO at Roy Thomson Hall when the orchestral version was new. It’s just as powerful in piano score; maybe more so as the singer can more easily convey the nuances of the text. The selection of texts is clever; tracing an arc from an imagined Eden via environmental destruction and the Residential School system to, maybe, the seeds of Reconciliation. The setting serves the text well and Angela made a really good substitute for an orchestra!
operaramblings 